Your Company is Not Innovative! How to Be a Better, More Believable Writer

If you want to waste your audience’s time, you should focus on how ‘leading’ and ‘innovative’ your organization is. You should breathe your own exhaust and write very long sentences. But if you want to capture your readers’ attention, do the opposite. Such was the advice at today’s opening session at the PR News Writing Boot Camp at The National Press Club.

“Don’t fall into the trap of talking about yourself,” says Dan Ronan, senior director of communications at the American Bus Association. Ronan, formerly a writer for CNN, advises communicators to follow the 10-second goal when writing: make sure your sentence is 10 seconds or less when it’s read out loud.

To hone your writing skills so that the media or your customers take notice, think in terms of headline writing: what is your key message and how can you succinctly capture that message? You should be able to do that in 15 words or fewer.

Additionally, video and visuals, such as infographics, are key to helping reporters do their jobs better. When setting out to write an article, press release or other public communication, be sure to ask these questions first:

To get past the jargon meter, Sholkin offered up these words to avoid in press releases and other communications:

Innovative

Innovator

Leader

Leading

Sustainable

Best

Solution

Top

Largest

Extensive

Exclusive

Extensive

Fastest

Real-time

Dynamic

Innovator

Provider

The hundreds of communicators in the room at the PR News Boot Camp today are a testament to the importance of attaining good writing skills and always honing them. “Being a strong writer and communicator is great for your career,” says Ronan.

And starting a sentence with “And” is OK, too. Some rules are meant to be broken.

About Diane Schwartz

Diane Schwartz is Senior Vice President & Group Publisher of the Media Communications Group at Access Intelligence, a business-to-business media information company based in Rockville, Maryland, with offices worldwide. Diane oversees the editorial, marketing, PR, sales and digital strategy of a rapidly expanding group, whose brands include PR News, CableFAX Daily, Media Industry Newsletter, min’s b2b, PR News Press, prnewsonline.com, minonline.com, cable360.net, Studio and Dorland Health. In her nearly 15 years with Access Intelligence, Diane has launched nearly three dozen conferences, newsletters, events, e-media ventures and ancillary products. A 25-year publishing veteran, Diane is on the board of the Specialized Information Publishers Association; she is past chairperson of the American Business Media CEBA Committee (Creative Excellence in Business Advertising) and serves on numerous other PR, media and business committees. She works in Access Intelligence’s Manhattan office and lives with her husband and two kids in Westchester County, NY. You can follow her on Twitter @dianeschwartz and read her PR News blog at prnewsonline.com.

In this 5th volume of PR News’ Book of Employee Communications, our authors cover more than 45 articles on crisis communications, social media policies, human resources collaboration, brand evangelism and more.

Hard not to use the word innovative! Some of my clients are actually curing diseases =].

dhp

Sometimes it is hard to write well when people in the C-suite expect to see the words above, along with as many superlatives as possible. Many writers would be judged as poor writers by their bosses if they left these out.

Trish

Excellent advice. I would like to add these over-used phrases: Passionate. As in, We are passionate about innovating …

Another cliche to avoid at all costs: Transparency. As in, We advocate transparency …

And my favorite yawn-inducer: Push the envelope.

All of the above were fresh about 10 years ago (or more).

Diane Schwartz is so right. Excessive rhetoric puts people to sleep.

Thought Of The Day

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."-Margaret Thatcher